Advertising

The Seattle Times Company

NWjobs | NWautos | NWhomes | NWsource | Free Classifieds | seattletimes.com

The Seattle Times

Business / Technology


Our network sites seattletimes.com | Advanced

Originally published Sunday, September 14, 2008 at 12:00 AM

Comments (0)     E-mail article     Print view

Makeover paid dividends for RS Core Equity

Mani Govil turned RS Core Equity into a top-ranked mutual fund by selling most of the stocks held by his predecessor and adding shares of technology, health-care and energy companies.

Bloomberg News

Mani Govil turned RS Core Equity into a top-ranked mutual fund by selling most of the stocks held by his predecessor and adding shares of technology, health-care and energy companies.

Govil started running the $853 million fund in August 2005 after it had lagged behind 95 percent of its peers during the previous five years.

He has since sold almost all of the stocks held by his predecessor, including Wachovia, Lehman Brothers Holdings and Merrill Lynch, which plunged with the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market.

RS Core Equity has returned an average of 9.9 percent a year under Govil, beating 98 percent of funds that invest in large-company stocks, according to Morningstar, the Chicago-based financial-information company.

"The fund needed a decisive turnaround," Govil said in an interview from his New York office. "We completely changed the portfolio."

RS Core Equity Fund, owned by San Francisco-based RS Investments, has three out of a possible five stars from Morningstar, which also assigns it a three-year Sharpe ratio of 0.55, compared with -0.07 for rivals. A higher Sharpe ratio means better risk-adjusted returns.

Morningstar puts the fund in its large "blend" category, which includes a mix of value and growth stocks. Value stocks are those deemed cheap on the basis of yardsticks such as earnings, while growth companies are those that increase earnings faster than peers. The fund identifies companies that have an edge over competitors, in terms of market share or new products, Govil said.

The fund gained 2.4 percent in the past year, through Aug. 20, also beating 98 percent of the competition, Morningstar's data show, while keeping 17.4 percent of its assets in financial stocks, the worst performers of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

Govil's picks among financials include Goldman Sachs Group, MasterCard and People's United Financial.

"They've avoided a lot of stocks that have blown up, and that really speaks to the manager's stock-picking ability," said Morningstar analyst Marta Norton.

Govil has 16 percent of assets in information technology, 15 percent in health care and 13 percent in energy. His top holding, at 6.1 percent of assets, is Houston-based Halliburton, the world's second-largest oilfield-services provider. Drugmakers Abbott Laboratories and Celgene are among the fund's top 10 holdings. The fund also holds Nokia Oyj, the Espoo, Finland-based cellular-phone company, and San Diego-based Qualcomm, the world's biggest maker of mobile-phone chips.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

More Business & Technology headlines...

E-mail article Print view      Share:    Digg     Newsvine

Comments
No comments have been posted to this article. Start the conversation.

advertising

Nintendo re-enlists Mario, savior of video-game industry

Verizon-Frontier deal stirs concern among consumers

Brier Dudley: 'Guitar Hero' founder excited about future

Gaps for consumers in Democrat health care bills

Hutch gets $10M from Bezos family for immunotherapy research

Advertising

Video

PNW Magazine | Easy As Pie
A little friendly competition between professional pie-baker Kate McDermott and The Seatttle Times' Kathleen Triesch Saul is handled with great taste.

Real Salt Lake wins MLS Cup
Raw Video | Real Salt Lake fans celebrate
Raw Video | Real Salt Lake receives the MLS Cup trophy
Real Salt Lake fans enter Qwest Field
Raw Video | MLS Cup Opening Ceremony
LA Galaxy's David Beckham
Real Salt Lake's Kyle Beckerman
MLS trophy arrives in Seattle
Chittenden Locks Inspection

Marketplace

Open Houses

Find this weekend's open house listings.
Or search by location:

nwautos

Less is more: Group rides, good gas mileage have led to a scooter swarm in Seattlenew
Local riders say they've seen a surge in scooter interest in recent years, mostly from people wanting another commuting option. Seattle now ranks as o...
Post a comment

 
Most read
Most commented
Most e-mailed
 
 
Advertising